Directed by Jan de Bont

Speed is bad in ways that other awful movies can only dream about. Forget for a second about the stupid plot. Forget the awful, awful ending. Forget how annoying Sandra Bullock is. Forget that if this movie were never made, she wouldn’t be famous. Forget how weird, clumsy and stilted Keanu is as a super-cop. Forget that he turns in one the decade’s worst acting performances. Forget how miscast Jeff Daniels’s character is. Even forget about the fact that in one scene Dennis Hopper snaps his fingers. What am I talking about? Hopper snaps his fingers with the hand that is missing a thumb! But forget all that. Let’s talk about the people on the bus.

They all suck!

Fuck Alan Ruck, fuck Beth Grant, fuck Carlos Carrasco, fuck Natsuko Ohama, fuck Hawthorne James and fuck Richard Lineback. Also, the Latino dude who played the little vato hoodlum, fuck you, too. God, what horrible bags of shit you all were. Normally I blame the writer for heinousness like this, but in this case I am making an exception. Y’all stunk and you managed to make an otherwise dumb but entertaining action flick hard to watch. Why? Cause they are all terrible people who have boring, stereotypical reactions to every single situation thrown at them. You ever read political polls in USA Today? That is how this gaggle of morons thinks. But wait, somebody did write those lines. . .

This Yost guy has to be stopped before Mission to Mars 2: Even More Preposterous and Insidious sees the light of day. Pop quiz, hotshot – Why are you such a lousy writer? Everything you have ever written, including Herman’s Head, has been abysmal. Why? Go into real estate or something.

One of my big dreams in life is to remake movies. I used to think that I would have to become a billionaire to accomplish this. My original plan was to remake Back To The Future scene by scene the way van Zant redid Pyscho, except in the scene where Chuck Berry’s cousin Marvin yells, “You know that new sound you’ve been looking for? Listen to this!” it would be the Fat Boys performing Between The Sheets. However, it has come to my attention recently that you don’t need money to do this stuff. Some dude digitally removed Jar-Jar Binks completely from the The Phantom Menace.

When I remake Speed I’m going to do it crossed with Spielberg’s Duel. That is the movie that Stephen the Great claims Jaws is based on. It is about a relentless semi-truck that wants to kill a man for some reason. And, it is a really bad movie. Instead of calling the remake Speed, or following Homer’s advice and calling it, “The Bus That Wouldn’t Slow Down,” I’m going to call my film, “Leaping Bus Of Terror!” What’ll happen is that the bus will just jump around Los Angeles, smashing up smaller buses and cars. Whenever it lands on another vehicle and makes a kill, the bus will utter a Godzilla-like noise to indicate its satisfaction. Trapped inside the bus will be many people in wheel chairs who are constantly rolling into each other and screaming, “I should have never gotten on this damb bus!”

What, like the plot of Speed is any better?

Ruthless Ratings:

Overall: 4

Direction: 3

Acting: 3

Story: 2

DVD Extras: Uh…

Re-watchability: 8

Special Ruthless Ratings:

Number of times you wondered how the LAPD got from downtown LA to Palm Desert in fifteen minutes: 4

Amount of money, in US dollars, that you’d be willing to bet that director de Bont and Writer Yost have never ridden on an RTD bus: $700

Number of times you realized that while your arms are bigger than Keanu’s, his are more defined: 7

Number of times you realized that Kevin Kostner watched Speed and said, “Dennis Hopper would be perfect as Deacon in Waterworld: 3

Number of times you laughed out loud at the way Keanu was speaking: 70

Number of times you thought they really should have ended it after the bus crashed into the passenger plane: 14

Number of times you would have shot the other passengers had you been trapped on the bus: 34

Number of times you would have thrown Sandra Bullock off of the moving bus, thereby ending your own life and the lives of the other passengers:47

Number of times you still cannot believe that they made Speed 2: 100

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About Jonny Lieberman

Jonny was the site’s co-founder and helped carry the place in the early years. There was a falling out with Erich and he left the site for good, but a lot of his reviews live on. He has moved on to a successful career writing about cars. Look him up.